Right from the start of the PC days I've found that the systems for which we fork out our hard-earned cash usually lack all the software features needed to use them to the fullest. Therefore I'm always on the look-out for useful utility software that would make my life easier and my work more efficient (and I particularly seek out those that are free or modestly priced).

I've learned from tracking visits to my web site and from comments posted on  several of my blogs (such as Notes Tone Unturned) that people really appreciate tips and techniques -- often learned the hard way -- that can help them solve problems or save time and trouble. Therefore in a short series of articles I'd like to share with my experiences with a few of these, ones that I suspect you likely haven't come across, purely in the in the hope and expectation that you'll also find them valuable.

I'd like to start off the series with a free Windows desktop utility called MyVitalAgent released by Alcatel-Lucent way back in early 2001. You can read the original Lucent Technologies press release here.

All the utilities that I discuss are running fine on my Windows XP Professional system. It's fairly likely that they'll all (or mostly) also work on Windows Vista, but I haven't tested this. By the way, I have legal licenses for Vista Business and Ultimate, but so far don't use either since I can't stand quite a few of the supposed "improvements" in the user interface and, like many, am intensely irritated by the nagging UAC dialogs. (My views on implementation plus th pros and cons of UAC are worth an article in its own right.)

Despite the most recent release of MyVitalAgent being 8.0.1 from way back around 2003 or so,  I've found that it still caters pretty well for most current connection types and conditions (such as cable and ADSL).

MyVitalAgent installs quickly and easily, and starts up automatically with Windows. It opens with four panes by default, as shown in Figure 1 (and demonstrated in the accompanying video, see later).

This figures illustrates one nice feature that I couldn't capture with Camtasia Studio for the video, namely the tool tip (pop-up) that appears when you mouse over the various icons in the web pane, such as the name or dotted IP address of the remote server (the HTTP or e-mail or FTP server). This can be very handy to be made aware of, one case being when you suspect you're being redirected by malware to a server other than the one you intended to visit.

Figure 1 - all panes open

Here we see that in the Web pane by placing the mouse pointer over one of the icons  a tool tip shows up, which names that particular network component (in this case, the Google website). This can change from instant to instant as different activities are occurring, such as your e-mail server being checked or FTP transactions occurring.

But I don't use the default configuration, so please read on to find out how I set up and use MyVitalAgent.